Airk

Nothing we have seen indicates that she is at a CS1 level of bad, merely at needless disadvantage. It's not that the nerfs are THAT terrible. It's that there was NO REASON for most of them.

Sticking with Tsubaki, but protesting the handling of Extend by buying it used eventually, rather than new right away. Bite me, Arc Sys. :P

What's the stage for "I really hope they come to their senses and do another balance tweak around the console release"? :P

It's a shame we don't have the "Noel problem" where Arcsys clearly has no idea what to do with the character, so makes her retarded good. Ugh. I was just looking at an EX Noel match and it's like "hmm, yup, still gets retarded damage off reacting to stuff with 4D". Whooopeee.

Yes, because you actually have at least a 5 frame window to do your inputs due to the advanced input functionality. I also expect that due to the way gatlings work, you can probably push the button even earlier and it'll still cancel you into your next move as soon as it can.

[quote=pktazn;1194699 I see what you're getting at since I agree they need to do something to her air normals. However, on my own general principles I have to ask you about your last sentence: Will it really matter in the end if you get to say whether or not you were right? I'm just curious because that's the vibe I'm getting.

I remain less than optimistic. I'm not seeing air mugen and air charge as sufficient improvements to Tsubaki's air game (air normals: still mediocre) to really shift the focus up there any, except as in sort of "well, this is all we've got, so even though it's not good, I guess it's better than nothing" way. Air charge does nothing to improve our air game, and fewer charges overall means air mugen is less useful than it could be. Anyway, taking my wet blanket back into the closet. I'm not going to say much about this until people have been playing EX for a while (or the frame data gets published), in which case I'll weigh in with either an "I told you so" or a "my bad."

I'd like to think this too, but then I see what the other characters are doing (Hi, my name is Ragna the Bloodedge, and I do 3.2K midscreen of an overhead for no meter, and require none of your fancy, newfangled "charges"). and I start to think that either A) CS:EX isn't actually all that different for a lot of characters and/or B) They missed the mark pretty badly on tuning everyone to the same level. I agree; While I'm glooming all over the place here, that's mostly because I'm raging against how absurd all these changes seem to be. There just...doesn't seem to be any reason for most of it. It's just "nerfed you because we could. Don't worry though, Hazama and Litchi are still stupid good." I don't think, barring even more "delightful" discoveries coming to light, that Tsubaki is going to be bad (at least, not in the sense of CS1 bad) but I do think (Think, not know) that she's going to be in the running for bottom tier, and that really seems senseless.

Thanks for the info Logic, even if it does mostly confirm my gloomy assumptions about how things were shaking up. On the one hand, these changes aren't THAT bad... but on the other, they ARE pretty bad if you ask me. Why it was necessary to TRIPLE NERF Tsubaki (Footsies nerf from 5B, charging nerf with both slower charge and less power per special AND a general damage nerf) and then give her some cheap consolation prizes (Oh yay, it's easier to OTG with 5C now, hooray, what a great tradeoff for losing our one decent poke. Sorry, but 5C is still too short ranged to be useful outside of combos. Hooray, Air Mugen. /eyeroll.) when she was already so thoroughly middle of the road? What exactly were they trying to do? Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure they overdid it. I feel like we're back in "Oh, you need charge to do non-terrible damage, but even if you manage to get some, you won't do the same level of damage as a lot of cast." land. >frustrated< How unhype am I for EX right now? Extremely. Bah. Sorry. Rant over.

Welcome to the community. Don't worry though, we can always flame you if it'll help you feel at home.

I think the best thing you can share with us is both general and specific impressions of the character, as shared by someone who A) has played EX and B) speaks english. So please DO write up your impressions, because right now, I'm seriously thinking that we're not seeing any exciting Tsubaki play from Japan because she's not any good anymore. Depressing, but that's really the impression I have so far.

I'm glad someone said this, because I was sitting at that exact screen scratching my head and going "What's so bad about Noel's backdash? It's above average speed and average invulnerability." The speed is above average because the actual duration of the backdash is quite short, and the distance travelled is fairly long, so it has to travel all that distance quickly, which means that it has a better chance of getting you out of range of an attack before the invulnerability frames wear off. Different backdashes are useful for different things, but Noel's seems to be pretty good.

Anyone else think it's BS that our midscreen damage got nerfed, but Ragna does 3.2k midscreen off an overhead for zero heat? -_- I should just stop watching this stuff. On the plus side though, the commentary on the Tager vs Tsubaki match was hilarious.

It's actually easiest to dodge spike chaser with 214C, because it has the most invulnerability frames by a large margin, the problem is that it takes a lot longer to get to them, so you need to start it up earlier. Again though, unless you're close enough to land a hit - either with the 214 itself, or with BattousaiJ's 214 > 22D trick - it's actually disadvantageous to try this, because they'll probably recover and then punish your whiff harshly. The only time this is really useful is when you get a Lambda who likes to use 214D as part of pressure at relatively close range (usually after a 236D or a knockdown). You can give them a nasty surprise with this if you're quick enough, but mostly you want to superjump over Spike Chaser if you can't punish it.

I only watched about the first half, but the general gist is along the lines of what Reptar said, only I'd take it a step further - you're really not doing anything to try to control the pace of the match at all. Pretty much all the matches involved maybe a little bit of jumping around at the beginning (Heck, one round you just blocked at the start, and kept on blocking pretty much until you had to burst), then you block something, and you're either blocking or getting hit for the rest of the match. Every once in a while you'd break free, but it seemed like you didn't really know what to do with the opportunity once you had it. Maybe you'd poke once or twice, and get lucky and land a combo, but it really seemed like you had no sense of how to approach the situation. I know Bang is tricky and moves around a lot, but I got a real "deer in the headlights" feel from watching this. =/ Things I can suggest, beyond "play more and learn footsies/air footsies/how to mount an offense" are: Use more counter assaults. You were pinned in the corner with meter a lot. Work on your 2C anti-air - while it's hard to do when being crossed up, even being able to call upon it in the corner to stop a jump in is crucial. Plus, once you start blocking the crossups, he's going to try to mix it up by attacking from the front. Block low on wakeup if you're not going to do a reversal; I saw a couple of wakeup throws, which, honestly, even though I do them way too often, are generally a bad idea. Trying for that means that you eat any kind of meaty your opponent throws out.

Well, if you delayed the 6B for some reason, or just did it late 'by mistake', then there could pretty easily be room for a throw.

The basic gist of the lambda matchup is that they threaten a lot of space, but as soon as they push a button, they stop threatening most of it. Your goal is to move through the space they no longer threaten. As Shrui points out, you can skip through Spike Chaser with 214X (B or D probably) but this is only useful if you're at least sortof near your opponent. Doing it fullscreen is probably bad. Otherwise, a lot of patient forward jumping forwards while holding back (No need to barrier except just as you leave the ground, to avoid Act Parser: Cavalier - all swords and other specials can be airblocked without it.) will condition them to try to anticipate you with a 6D or 2D, and the instant they whiff one of those, you can 236C/D and be in their face. Similarly, if you can learn to recognize the startup frames of Spike Chaser or Sickle Storm, these can be punished at anything less than fullscreen with a 236C/D. Eventually, Lambda is probably going to resort to using 5D or jumping back and using j.2D to keep you out. This will beat aggressive ground rushes with 236C/D, but gives you more or less free jump ins (If they use 5D, you can often even airdash over it and hit them if they space wrong) or at least force them to give up ground. Patience is key here. That said, I have no suggestions if you find yourself facing a Lambda player who goes in aggressively, beyond the usual advice - anti-air well, and watch your spacing. All Act Parser moves can be beaten with 236 if you can react fast enough, otherwise, instant block and start your own pressure with a shortdash 5B. (Or if your opponent is in the habit of trying to jump after one of these is blocked, try punishing with 22A.)

Okay; Good to know I was right about neutral techs then. Obviously, Gadget finger is a whole big messy issue of its own, but yeah: You can always beat command grabs on your wakeup by holding up - as long as you don't roll, because he can grab you out of the roll. Particularly if magnetized. Whew. Was concerned there for a bit.

You've never been thrown out of 5B>6B because Kiba is wrong - you can't. 5B is 16 frames of blockstun, 6B hits on frame 21. That's a 5 frame gap and throws are 7 frames (6 for Tager). It should not be possible to throw you out of that gatling. 6C on the other hand hits on frame 23, so there's enough room for a throw. So to summarize: 6B can be DPed, and jabbed out by characters with 5 frame jabs (though I think it will trade). 6A and 6C can be DPed, thrown, jabbed, etc, if the opponent is looking for them. The trick, as usual, is to do different stuff so they have to watch out for all of it. 5B > 22C beats all options except DPs, but if people are mashing against your 5B, you should, er, do 5BB more, because there's no gap and it can hit them while they're trying to do the motion for the DP if they're not careful.

This is odd. Does this mean that if you neutral tech, there are frames at the end during which you are vulnerable? Because otherwise, I would expect a neutral-tech>Hold up to take you right from the 32nd frame of the neutral tech (which is completely invulernerable) to frame 1 of jump startup (which is unthrowable), so it shouldn't matter how meaty the command grab is. Quick-tech > Hold up should work equally well because quick tech is throw invulnerable for its entire duration, but... I don't understand why neutral tech > hold up wouldn't work.

Thanks guys, this should be really valuable. (and good practice for me too, since I still fumble the j.236A whiff stuff on the left side sometimes.).

Uh...maybe? >.> Will have to check. sounds promising.

Anyone have a good 2 charge corner combo from a 5B starter that DOESN'T require DP-whiff action? My current go to corner combo with charge is 5BB > 5CC > 22D > 5C > 2CC > 22C > Dash 5C > 2CC > 236B > 214B > 22B ( > Super), which is solid, but I don't really have any good way of throwing in more charge for more damage. (Er, technically, I think I can add an IAD in there somewhere for a couple hundred more damage too, which I'm working on, but I'm not reliable yet). I can also do 22D/214D > 6CC > 623C > j.236A (Whiff) > j.214D stuff but that doesn't(?) work from a 5B starter. Any suggestions, other than "Stop sucking and learn DP whiff"?

Yet people get hit and reset by Jin's lows all the dang time. You be the judge of whether people need the advice or not. :P

Tsubaki forums are the best community on Dustloop.